Feast of All Saints (69 page)

“But Monsieur, isn’t it too much for her now?” Marcel had pressed him ever so gently. “Doesn’t Lisette need a woman in the kitchen with her right away? To train a little girl, it would take so long.” Softly, subtly, on other nights the subject would arise again while day after day there was no venture to the slave marts, no summons for the notary, Jacquemine. Monsieur Philippe drank bourbon at noon for breakfast, dropping his raw oysters deftly right into the glass. And Lisette, broom in hand, glared at him from beneath lowered lids in a flash of weary yellow eyes.

If I was there I could help her, Marie was thinking. She had always folded the linen, put the china away. No, even in the sedate comfort of Tante Josette’s bedroom, she stood quietly at the washstand thinking of the cottage which for all the miserable hours she had spent there was still her home.

She was breathless as she rushed up the stairs. Anyone who ran through the streets at high noon in the month of August was a fool, and certainly, any young woman who had just celebrated her fifteenth birthday should not be running through the streets at all. But she had run all the way from the cottage to the dress shop, and she did not care. She stopped in the hallway of the flat to catch her breath, and to take Madame Suzette’s letter out of her valise, and then sighing made her way to the parlor door. Tante Colette had been dozing by the window, the blinds loosely latched to keep out the sun while admitting the breeze. And Tante Louisa with the Parisian
Sylphe des Salons
hovered over the table, a monocle held to her eye. “Ah, Marie,
chère,”
she murmured as if the words must be said softly so as not to dissipate the cooler air that hovered motionless in the shadowy room. “Have you been home?”

“Tante,” Marie kissed her breathlessly. She was seated quickly across from her as Tante Colette roused herself and peered, one hand
shading her from a small burst of sunlight between shutters, at the distant mantel clock. “Don’t read in that light, Lulu,” she said. And to Marie, “Did you get all your things?”

“Yes, but you see, you see…” Marie started. Still she had not caught her breath, and there was so much to explain.

“And what is the matter with you?” Colette rose, rustling, as she came forward. She put her hand on Marie’s head.
“Mon Dieu.”

“Tante, it’s a letter,” Marie said. “From Madame Suzette.”

“Well, who is the letter for,
chère.”
Colette took it, holding it quite far away so that she might read it, then clucking, she turned it toward the light.

“What did your Maman say, it’s all right with her if you stay?” Louisa asked dreamily. She was turning the pages again.

“Yes, yes,” Marie shook her head. Stuff and nonsense. It was always all right, but still they would always ask, “Did you ask your Maman, now are you sure that your Maman…?”

“Tante, Madame Suzette’s asked us to coffee, all of us…this afternoon!” Marie said.

“This afternoon!” Louisa put down the monocle. She squinted at the clock. “
This
afternoon?”

“The invitation came last week,” Marie shook her head again. “But there was no answer, the invitation must have been lost.”

“Lost?” Louisa said. “Why it’s twelve-thirty,
ma chère
, coffee this afternoon?”

Colette had taken the letter to the front window and held it to the thin bars of light. “Hmmmm, hmmmmp,” she was saying. “And she just said to me after Mass Sunday, ‘well I suppose I’ll see you all on Tuesday afternoon,’ and do you know I couldn’t for the life of me figure what she meant, ‘see you all Tuesday afternoon.’ ” She folded the letter. “What do you mean the invitation was lost!”

“But Tante, there’s still time,” Marie said. “It’s not till three o’clock and…” Marie stopped. She was so hot now she was dizzy. She sat back abruptly causing the small Queen Anne chair to creak. She put her hands to her face. The weight of the chignon on the back of her head was painful and it seemed even her clothes were heavy, pulling her down with them. “Tante, I must write to her this minute, tell her that we’ll be there, Jeanetta could take the letter now.”

“Now just be patient,
chère
, just be patient,” Louisa took the letter from Colette’s hand.

“Lost indeed,” Colette said. “Your Maman received that invitation, didn’t she?”

Marie stared from one to the other of them. She started to speak and then stopped. Bending forward from the waist, she looked away from them down the long passage from the parlor door. The shutters
were open at the end of the passage and the light forced her to close her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” she whispered, turning back to them. She was in pain.

“So what did she say!” Colette demanded.

Marie shook her head. Her shrug was subtle, not a consummate gesture. “She doesn’t recall receiving it,” she said, her voice faltering, weakening. She didn’t want to speak of this, or even think of it. It wasn’t important to her. “Ah…” she took a deep breath, “Monsieur Philippe received the letter this morning…Maman says…she cannot go.”

“Hmmmmp, well that’s understandable enough with Monsieur Philippe there,” Colette conceded, “but not to answer that invitation, I bet she threw that invitation away.”

“Doesn’t matter, we’ll just have to write to her and explain that we can’t go now.” Louisa said.

Marie was on her feet again. Red blotches appeared in her white cheeks. “Can’t go? But we must go. She’s expecting us, you said that Sunday…Sunday…” she looked at Colette. Her voice was unsteady, hoarse from her running, but her eyes were imploring and rather strong. “Tante, don’t you see?” she said. “She’s invited us, all of us, formally to coffee…”

“Why,
ma chère
, of course I see,” Louisa interrupted. “And so does your Tante Colette, but it’s twelve-thirty-five by the clock and we can’t…”

Marie put her hands to her temples as if she were hearing a discordant sound.

“Now you listen to me, Marie,” Colette said quite simply. “This is just a little bit of a mess, here with your mother unable to go, and the invitation not properly answered, things like this have to be attended to in the proper time…” she stopped. “Well,” she said suddenly, and looked from her sister to her niece.

“The point is,” Louisa said, opening the journal again and lifting her monocle, “this is a certain sort of invitation, I mean, considering the visits you’ve had from young Richard…”

“But that’s just it,” Marie said softly. “That’s exactly it.”

“And it’s just not proper that we rush into something like this, not with people who are so, well, formal, like the Lermontants…”

“Now you have to understand,” Colette interrupted gravely, “when you let a boy visit you like that so often, walk with you to Mass every single Sunday and you don’t pay even the slightest mind to anyone else…”

“But I understand!” Marie was gasping. “I knew that sooner or later she might ask us, I was…I was hoping…” She pressed her knuckles to her lips.

Both the aunts remained silent for a moment. They were looking at her, and a slight frown marred Colette’s rather smooth forehead. She had her head just a little to one side. It was an air of skepticism and then drawing herself up she began again, “Now you just can’t do something like this without thinking it over…”

“You’re not saying you won’t go!”

It was two o’clock before it ended. Marie sat numbly in her chair. For a long time she had said nothing, the early arguments had been easy to counter, that she must not be hasty, that there were so many fine boys, and Augustin Dumanoir was a planter’s son, and she was so young, yes, again and again, she was so young. But some time or other in the room matters had changed. It was a tone of voice perhaps, something impatient in Colette’s tone. Marie did not even know then but she had commenced to shake all over as she heard that voice altering, the words becoming slower, weighted with the necessity for truth. Marie had run her hands into her hair, palms pressed to her forehead. She did not believe it! But it was always Colette who would finally come to the point.

“…parties are good for a young girl, they give a young girl poise, why, there’s nothing wrong with your receiving all the boys, as long as all the boys are invited, as long as…” And so on it went, until deeper and closer it came to the heart of the matter as the clock ticked, as the tiny golden hand moved from one to two.

Silence in the room except for the ticking. Colette was scratching at a note at the desk.

Louisa was trying to soften it, make it all seem rather matter-of-fact, “You see, even if you were to marry a colored boy, I mean if you were to make up your mind that that was what you wanted for yourself, and Michie Philippe was willing and your Maman was willing and…well, you see Augustin Dumanoir is a planter’s son,
chère
, a planter’s son, with land that goes on farther back from the river than the eye can see, and I’m not saying that Richard Lermontant won’t make some nice girl a fine husband, why if you want to know the perfect truth,
chere
, I have always liked Richard Lermontant just about the best.”

Colette put down the pen. She rose from the desk.

“Now I have taken care of this,” she said gravely. “You musn’t worry about things. I have known these old families all my life, I’ve known them on the Cane River and I’ve known them here. Madame Suzette will understand. Now do you want to take this down to Jeannetta, or shall I take it on down myself?”

“I’ll take it,” Louisa said rising. Marie had not moved. She was staring at the note. And she did not know it, but the drawn and grave expression of her face sobered and frightened her aunts. Louisa made
a patient gesture of “let her be” and Colette made a little shake of the head.

“Chère
, someday when you’re older, and that will come awfully soon,” Colette said, “you will thank me for this. I don’t expect you to believe that, but I know it’s a fact.”

“Give me the note,” Louisa said quickly.

But Marie reached out her hand.

“I’ll take it,” she said softly. And she rose from the chair.

“Well, then, now that’s better,” Tante Colette embraced her, kissed her on both cheeks.

“We’re not saying you can’t still see that boy…long as you see him with all the others…” Louisa had commenced again as Marie went out the door.

She was in the back of the shop for a full five minutes before Jeannetta down on her knees to pin up a hem for a white lady rose quickly to her beckoning finger.

“Is my new green muslin ready?” Marie whispered.

“Oh, yes, Mamzelle,” the girl answered. The other seamstresses looked after her a bit resentfully, as she took Marie into the small dressing room opposite, “See, perfect, Mamzelle!”

Marie’s eyes moved coldly over the ruffles. “Then help me dress quickly.” she said. She had already crumpled the note into a ball.

She had never been in the house. She had passed it a hundred times, it seemed, and never crossed that threshold and at times she had lain awake at night knowing her brother was there.

Her world was made up of flats and cottages, finely furnished always, but nothing of the grandeur of this immense façade rising three stories above the Rue St. Louis, a broad fan light above its paneled door. She did not stop to look at it now, to look up at the high attic windows, or the lace curtains that fluttered a bit carelessly from an upper room. Because if she did stop, she would be afraid.

And since she had left the shop, all fear had been obliterated in her by an anger so perfect in its clarity that it had impelled her on without pause for the slightest question of her course. Now she lifted her hand to pull the bell. Far off it rang, and clearer yet was the sound of a clock, an immense clock, ringing the hour of three. Her eyes fixed on the granite step before her. She refused to think a moment ahead. And when Placide, the old valet, opened the door for her, she did not know what words she murmured to him except that they were polite. A great stairway rose before her, winding its way up beyond a landing where a high window looked upon a lace of leaf and sky. And her eyes turned slowly, steadily, to follow the old man’s back as he led her into a large room. Madame Suzette was there, she knew it before she lifted
her eyes. Very slowly, timelessly it seemed, the room impressed itself on her. The low table before the marble fireplace set with cake, the china cups, and the lone woman rising to her feet, the pale creamy brown skin of her folded hands against her blue dress. And there was that face, serene, not beautiful perhaps, but pleasing with its large dark eyes, the long and generous Caucasian mouth, the gray streaks in the deep chestnut hair. There was anger in the eyes, just the touch of outrage, as they shifted uneasily to the figure of Marie in the door. The lips didn’t move. The expression shifted subtly from one of anger to patience and then a deliberate and wary smile.

“So you’ve come, after all,” the voice was courtesy.

“Madame, my aunts and my mother regret…” Marie started. “Madame, my aunts and my mother regret that they cannot come. I have…I have come alone.”

The eyes were wide with wonder, the figure contained as if it would not make some hasty move. And then all at once it seemed, soundlessly and gracefully, the figure came toward her, the hands out slowly to take her by the shoulders, “Why,
ma chère,”
she said softly, hesitating, “I’m so glad, then, that you could come.”

It was never awkward which seemed a wonder afterwards. Madame Suzette had commenced at once to talk. Not once had she mentioned the aunts or Cecile, there were no questions, in fact, and it seemed rather that she could carry the afternoon’s conversation with only the sparest of monosyllabic answers on her own. She had talked softly of the weather at first as people do, moving gently into all the proper little subjects, did Marie sew, and wasn’t it a lovely dress? Had she left school altogether after her First Communion, well, perhaps that was just as well.

It seemed at some perfect interval they had risen, and begun to move about the house. It was easier then, easy to ask about the crystal on the sideboard, the dining table which had come from France. And the garden was so beautiful that Marie at once smiled. They had wandered up the stairs finally, talking softly of Jean Jacques who had made the small table in the upper hall.